Since writing my last entry I am feeling slightly enlightened. The extended family has gone home, and even though that first part of the gathering was awkward, it got better. Firstly, we had new-comers in our midst, one of which was a three-year-old girl, she was lovely and we had lots of fun. Everybody was taking joy in watching little Isabelle playing and laughing and pulling crackers and singing and dancing and opening presents. Furthermore, this year I got gift vouchers and money which I’m very happy with. This year we decided to try something a little different, in addition to everybody buying a gift for somebody, my grandparents also bought twenty-six random gifts (I don’t know where they get all this money from, because they also gave me $200). All these gifts were wrapped and placed under the tree, we participated in a version of Kris Kringle where we all drew numbers from a hat and in that order from 1-26 we chose a present form under the tree. Now, the first person, let’s call him Joe (because I like naming my hypothetical people) will choose and unwrap a present. Let’s say that he gets a pair of socks, now Susie can also choose a tree-gift or if she decides that she’d like those socks, she can take them, and Joe gets to unwrap another present. So this goes on until everybody has a present. We all had a lot of fun with this and had lots of laughs. What made this part really special to me is that everybody commented on how good it was and when my grandparents were leaving they suggest that we only do this from now on, and don’t buy individual presents, my mother and sister then said “Then people can enjoy the laugh, and the experience” (or something to that effect). So apparently, despite all I said earlier about toilet cleaners, spoons and chairs, the Christmas Spirit isn’t completely dead.

So, without any further ado, Merry Christmas to you all. I hope your days are as good as my Christmas Eve.

Today is Christmas Eve. The day before Christmas (so not really a holiday in itself, but whatever). Tonight my family from my Dad’s side will come over for dinner, so we’ve been madly preparing for everything. One thing that has caught my attention is the lengths to which people go to make the day “perfect”. I’ve watched my mother get stressed over cutlery matching and the colour of the napkins, how far the table-cloths hang over the edge of the table and where to put the spoons until dessert. Furthermore, I have watched her scratching at doors trying to get blu-tac off declaring that people will be offended if they see it. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but Christmas is supposed to be joyful, after all it is about how Christ came to forgive our sins. I am absolutely aware that the holiday hardly holds that meaning anymore so I’m going to go with Christmas in modern day society is about spending time with loved ones, yes? So why is it so commercialised? Why do I see people stressing over what to buy people, what food to serve, what chairs to sit on and what cleaning product to use on the toilets!? I’ll leave you to decide whether that last one was a joke or not. Furthermore, why do people bother to buy friends and family crap. If you don’t know what to buy somebody DON’T GET THEM ANYTHING! The point of Christmas is not to buy people crap that they don’t need or want, it is to spend time with them. Last year somebody bought me a decorative plate and shot glasses. I’ve also been victim to collective tea-sets. I have to wonder whether these people that are my family have ever met me. I am not a difficult person to buy for, I am quite content with blank DVDs, video camera tapes, iTunes vouchers or even a box of printer paper! Why do I get crap bought for me that does not match my personality at all, then get yelled at for having too much stuff, then get told that I “can’t throw that away” so I have to throw away stuff that actually means something to me. But this has veered into a rant about presents, which is was not supposed to.

Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, Frame Of Mind is yet another from season six that I must add to the list of my favourite episodes. Occasionally within the series I have been presented with slightly abstract episodes, those that veer away from the formula that you come to expect. Frame of Mind is one of these episodes. My initial thoughts were that I found Crusher’s play to be interesting, I wanted to see more of it, although that is probably more of a reflection of my taste rather than anything relevant to Frame Of Mind. While my original speculation of the eventual outcome was essentially correct (SPOILERS: That Riker had been kidnapped on his undercover mission and that he was being brainwashed, or something to that effect) throughout the episode I found myself second-guessing that analysis, against my better judgement I began to believe that maybe, just maybe, Riker was completely delusional and that his entire career in Starfleet was a figment of his imagination. It got to the point where I, like he, was struggling to distinguish between reality and fiction, which I suppose was the point of the episode, which just goes to show the quality of the writing. The music in the episode helped add to the overall feeling of uncertainty, and while the special effects weren’t anything mind-blowing they did form a sense of surrealism. But you know me, these late nights do not lend themselves well to my ability to talk about technical achievements. Overall, this episode made me feel extremely uneasy, especially as I lay here watching it in the silence and darkness that is my bedroom. And so ends another three hundred words or so of my raw perceptions of Star Trek episodes, fresh after having just finished the episode about ten minutes ago. Let me know if you want to read more of these, I’m always happy to talk about Star Trek and to share my new experience of the universe with those of you who have resided here longer than me.

So here I am, it’s 2:19am, my eyes are extremely unfocussed and they keep almost flashing, as though the light behind me has a moth flying in front of it, alterting the light in the room slightly. Why am I up this late with unfocussed eyes? Well, I just finished watching Fight Club for the first time in my life. I will warn you now that this (probably brief) review type thing WILL contain spoilers, and I need you to excuse me if I use some shaky logic or if my sentences make no sense, I can’t really see and I am incredibly tired.

So my limited knowledge of this film prior to viewing it tonight was made up of the following. I knew that there were ‘subliminal’ image flashes, only noticed two, I don’t know if there were more and I missed them… I also knew that there was some big twist, surprisingly it’s one of the twists that I had managed to avoid throughout my life. The only other thing I knew about it was “the first rule of fight club, you don’t talk about fight club.” Other than those three things, I really didn’t know anything about the film.

So the film begins, immediately I think “this isn’t what I expected” and I begin to wonder what this film is actually about, however I also find myself loving the cinematography and just thinking that what I was watching, whatever it was, was brilliant. This sensation really continued for the majority of the film. I was immediately drawn to the character of Tyler, definitely one of the better characters Brad Pitt has played. I always enjoy the characters who are a bit fucked up, so it was great. So nearing the middle of the film I realise that I’m strangely crushing on him….okay…whatever. Moving on, to the twist I think, because it’s now 2:34am and I’m beginning to fall asleep at my keyboard. I did not see it coming, and I warn you now, if you haven’t seen this film DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER. I saw it a few seconds beforehand, right when you’re meant to. The random guy says something to the effect of “Dude you were here on Thursday, you did this to my hand” that’s when I saw it and I just sat here in my bed, in shock. My hands were plastered to my forehead, almost in a Wentworth Miller “everything’s going wrong”-esqe kind of way. I thought the film was going to end then, but no, it kept going. I didn’t enjoy this next part as much as everything that had come beforehand. So…you know, I don’t even know the main character’s name…whatever, he runs around trying to turn himself into the authorities, and I wondered why he didn’t just kill himself, but I suppose his fight with Tyler was just that. Either way, stuff happens, he shoots himself, Tyler is gone, I wonder why he is still alive, I’m still a bit confused by that, but whatever.

Why didn’t I watch this film when I was studying consumerism for an art assignment? Tyler, some awesome philosophy there, brilliant.

So what do my drunken ramblings boil down to? Perfect film, I can find no fault with this film, it loses some point with that bit that I didn’t like, but the points are lost in a “but you still get an A+” kind of way. This film was good enough that I didn’t even text people with a running commentary of “OMG! WTF? Wow.” Instead I got to the end and after I’d regained a slight bit of composure, sent a message simply saying “That was fucking ace.”

So, I applaud you if you’ve made your way this far through my ramblings, I absolutely hate to think what I wrote, I will post this in the morning, or perhaps early afternoon, for lack of wireless internet that would allow me to do it now. Goodnight my lovelies!! Watch this film if you haven’t, but I suppose I’ve spoiled it now, watch it anyway…Although who hasn’t seen Fight Club? People say that about Jurassic Park, I haven’t seen that one either. Can’t say I’m awfully interested. I’ll watch Pulp Fiction first, as it is next on my list. Now I really am signing off at 2:48am. One to beam up. Yes, I had to get some Star Trek in there somewhere.

I am forced to wonder what sort of state I would be in right now, were I waiting for the conclusion of Best Of Both Worlds. Instead, I am waiting for my reserved copy of season six of Star Trek: The Next Generation to come into the store. Every week they tell me that it will be in next week. Okay, to be fair, it’s only been two weeks, I haven’t been waiting for long at all. The most annoying part of this ordeal is that yesterday I found a copy of season seven for $25, insead of the $64 I have been spending.

Now, this delay has forced me into one of two options, start watching season seven anyway, or rewatch one of the old seasons. So over the last few days I have watched almost all of season four, definitely my favourite season so far. What sort of person have I become that I have to watch an old season of Star Trek when the next season hasn’t arrived? It seems to be some sort of addiction that I can’t (and don’t particularly want to) shake.

So, my question is, where is my Star Trek? And what am I going to do when I run out? What do I have to look forward to after Next Gen? DS9, then what? Voyager, really? Oh wow, I’ve been influenced in these matters more than I could have ever imagined.

The season 5 episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, I, Borg, follows the Enterprise crew after they save a barely living Borg form a deserted planet. Picard, because of his alligence to The Federation, but more importantly because of his encounter in The Best Of Both Worlds, wants to introduce a virus into the Borg collective, effectively killing the group. Everybody except for Crusher agrees to go ahead with the plan, she makes her distain for the whole thing known to everybody but is still forced to go along with it. But, you all know the storyline, let me dive into the brief, if not, very simple analysis.

Star Trek, as a series is based on Gene Roddenberry’s idea of the future, the point I’d like to focus on today is the setting aside of differences, resulting in the prevention of war. Throughout this episode as you watch Geordi and Beverly make friends with the borg, you find yourself screaming things like “Don’t make friend with the borg!” and “What are you doing, Geordi!?” at the television. You are one-hundred percent against the borg and want to see them dissolve into history. It is around the point when Guinan talks to the borg that you begin to doubt everything you’ve said over the past twenty-two minutes, you begin to realise that for the entire episode up until that moment, you have been rooting for Picard to eliminate an entire race, you wonder where you lost the morals that Star Trek had taught you. Everybody is equal, everybody deserves a chance at life.

I, Borg is actually a very sad and touching episode, but it leaves you quite confused at the same time, not to mention a little unsure of yourself.

My friend just gave the mission to find out the song fromt his video (which he saw on the most recent NCIS episode Murder 2.0), needless to say, I found what he wanted, but then I foudn myself watching the whole video. I don’t understand why it’s so popular, but for some reason I was thouroughly entertained. Can somebody explain why that is?